What can an alternative band do amid the protracted death of alternative rock? Solutions to this problem seem to vary drastically. Weezer confronted the changing market by returning to its '80s roots and producing a more melodic album that competes with current pop. Billy Corgan simply pronounced rock dead, along with his career, and retired to a life of professional cynicism.
Cracker has devised the cunning strategy of claiming to remain indie and original, while blatantly following recent trends and altering a once successful style. Unfortunately, this approach fails on their newest album "Forever."
Singer-songwriter David Lowery, the former frontman for Camper Van Beethoven, envisioned "Forever" as a combination of Van Beethoven and early Cracker, but with more innovative studio layering. In order to escape banal commercial production, Cracker recorded this album in Richmond, with Lowery engineering most of the tracks himself. The result is an over-produced album lacking the alluring essence of both early Cracker and his former band. Despite aspirations of being an engineer, Lowery definitely should keep his day job.
"Forever" is a musical melting pot, amalgamating alternative rock, blues, country and even rap into a single sound that gyrates between generic and pathetic, mostly leaning toward the latter. In this fusion, Cracker appears more disoriented and unfocused than avant-garde. It's as if the band tried combining Stone Temple Pilots and Shania Twain and then added Sir Mix-A-Lot.
The album does boast a few positive aspects that might inspire loyal Cracker fans to purchase it. Lowery's vocals remain hypnotic, both monotonous and alluring. A few songs harbor the vocal energy found in Cracker's all-time hit, "Low." The title track features Lowery's best vocals over a Hammond organ and a twangy, telecaster-like guitar. The song's chorus is direct and memorable, simply because Lowery sings it without accompaniment. If band members want to produce a hip album sometime soon, they need to capitalize on Lowery's grunge voice and avoid giving a microphone to anyone else for vocal harmony.
In addition to Lowery's solid vocals, JohnnyHickman's rebellious guitar riffs remain oblivious to the notion that rock is supposedly dead. On the commendable "Shine," Hickman opens with a dark guitar riff reminiscent of Cracker's early and more illustrious days. Few post-alternative bands have the candor to record a prominent guitar riff - Alien Ant Farm and Linkin Park feature distorted guitars, but they rarely take the spotlight. For remaining true to rock, Hickman deserves a salute.
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Along with the title track and "Shine," the album opener, "Brides of Neptune," will appeal to Cracker fans, but for different reasons. "Neptune" is a layered and mellow track, resembling the material on Ryan Adams' new album "Gold." In fact, fans of Adams would agree that the subtle piano lines, deep echoes and gentle guitar riffs in "Neptune" reflect the mellifluous masterpieces of Adams' former band, Whiskeytown. Unfortunately, Lowery lacks the lyrical skills of Adams and his peers, as particularly evident on this album. While the music in "Neptune" is becalming, its lyrics showcase such thoughtless lines as "Brides of Neptune / Guarded by monkeys."
Perhaps a chimp banging on a typewriter could have composed better verse than the balderdash present on "Neptune" and "Miss Santa Cruz County," among others. The tastelessness of the album's lyrics are made evident in the song "Don't Bring Us Down": "God gave you life / So get out of mine / And take your sorry ass back to Florida." The trite chorus, which chants, "You bring us down," might find popularity amongst former Enron employees, but it's too mindless even for a market dominated by synchronized teenagers.
Potential buyers would do best to boycott this album and instead check out better albums with a similar style, such as Ryan Adams' "Gold" or Jimmy Eat World's "Bleed American"
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